‘Nothing. She is particularly reserved upon the subject. I know that it is a painful one for her, and I rarely approach it.’ ‘Well, he is a lucky dog. I never hated a fellow so much. I have an instinctive idea that he is a scoundrel.’ ‘Are not instinctive ideas convictions that jump with our own inclinations?’ speculated Celia, philosophically. ‘I am heartily sorry for you, Ned dear, for I know you are fond of Laura, and it does seem hard to have her willed away from you like this. But seriously now, would you be pleased to marry her with no better portion than her own little income?’ ‘Six thousand in Consols,’ said Edward, meditatively. ‘That would not go very far with a young man and woman of refined tastes. We might love each other ever so dearly, and be ever so happy together, but I’m afraid we should starve, Celia, and that our children’s only inheritance would be their legal claim on their own parish. I thought that wicked old man would leave her handsomely provided for.’ ‘You had no right to think that, knowing that he had pledged himself to leave her nothing.’ ‘Oh, there would always have been a way of evading that. I call his will absolutely shameful--to force a high-spirited girl to take a husband of his choosing--a fellow whom he had never seen when he made the stipulation.’ ‘He took care to see young Mr. Treverton before he died. I dare say if he had not been favourably impressed he would have altered his will at the last moment.’ This conversation took place nearly four months after Jasper Treverton’s death. The hedgerows were growing green; the birds had eaten the last of the crocuses; the violets were all in bloom in the shrubbery borders, the grass grew fast enough to require weekly shearing, and the Manor-house garden was a pleasant place to walk in, full of budding trees and opening blossoms, and the songs of birds, telling each other rapturously that spring had come in earnest, and that winter days and a stony-hearted, frost-bound earth were things of the past. Edward Clare believed himself the most ill-used of young men. He was good-looking--nay, according to the general judgment of his particular circle, remarkably handsome; he was cleverer and more accomplished than most young men of his age and standing. If he had done nothing as yet to distinguish himself it was not for lack of talent, he told himself complacently. It was only because he had never yet put his shoulder to the wheel. He did not consider that duty strongly called upon every man to do his uttermost part in the labour of moving that mighty wheel. A clever young man, like himself, might stand on one side and watch other fellows toiling at the job, knowing that he could do it ever so much better if he only cared to try.